Google is bringing the Assistant to its Messages app

The Google Assistant is everywhere. To access it on your Android phone, you can either long-press your phone’s home button, use the “Okay, Google” hotword, or, if you happen to own a Pixel 2 or 3, you can squeeze the sides of your phone to activate your Assistant.

In the coming months for English users, Messages (formerly Android Messages) will begin showing you suggestions relating to your ongoing conversations. If you and a friend are talking about a specific restaurant, a movie, or the weather conditions for instance, the Messages app will display Google Assistant links below the conversation so you can quickly access more information about that topic.

Google says Messages will utilize on-device AI for this feature, so none of your conversations will be sent to Google. In fact, no content from your conversations will be sent to Google — only the information listed in the Google Assistant link below your conversation.

At CES 2019, Google brought the Assistant to Google Maps, allowing users to ask for directions, make calls, and play music hands-free from within the app. Google says it’s seen a 15x increase in the number of queries asking to send messages and read incoming texts since the Assistant’s rollout in Google Maps. In the coming weeks, Google Assistant in Google Maps will roll out to all Assistant phone languages. If the Assistant is available in your phone’s language, stay tuned for that!

Google clearly wants to make it easier than ever for users to access the Assistant no matter which application they’re using. Tell us in the comments which applications you’d like to see gain Google Assistant support.